TOP 3 THINGS I’LL MISS ABOUT DUBLIN

Boo Hoo …Elaine O’ Connor ( Isaacs Hostel and Jacobs Inn staff) is sadly leaving us to head to the Big Apple or a year ..We will miss you Elaine and your blagging …Here are her final musings ….

TOP 3 THINGS I’LL MISS ABOUT DUBLIN.

Like many an immigrant before me, I’ve got my ticket for the “promise land”. Soon I’ll be touching down in JFK Airport, leaving the green (albeit soggy) grass of home behind me…for a year anyway. As the clock keeps ticking down and my imminent departure looms I can’t help but think of all the things I’ll miss about my hometown DublinCity.

Pub Culture

The one thing I probably fear the most about going to New York is that I will automatically be judged as an alcoholic just because I’m having a pint at 2pm on a Tuesday afternoon. For me going for a casual pint or a cup of coffee are the same. You don’t necessarily drink to get drunk in Ireland it’s above all, I think, a social thing. The best ways to kill a few hours with your mates (or even the best way to make new friends, if just for the afternoon) is to go have a “schoop” in the pub. I’m not talking about pounding shots at a nightclub; this is sipping a pint of Guinness and just relaxing. Hopefully, I will find some other casual drinkers like myself across the pond as I think the days of doing Jagerbombs are behind me.

The “Craic”

It sounds so clichéd I know but the laugh and random banter you can have with complete strangers at any given time of the day here is like any other city I’ve been to. The Irish know how to “talk the ear off ya sure” and most tourists that come here always comment on how friendly most of the people here are. Saying that, there’s good and bad anywhere but I do love the occasional sing-a-long on the last bus home orchestrated by the old cheery drunk who refuses to sit in polite silence when he’s just in such a good mood or the many Taxi rides home that I’ve stayed an extra 10 minutes in the car just chatting to the driver because the conversation was so good and the journey was too short.

Live Music

Not that you cannot find this anywhere else but I do love, not just live concerts and gigs, but the small pub sessions and the buskers in Dublin. This is what most people come here to find but end up in Temple Bar listening to yet another rendition of ‘Galway Girl’, instead I’ll miss the afternoon informal trad sessions in a local. If you’re not in the mood to sit indoors on a possibly (though unlikely) sunny day, taking a stroll down Grafton Street during the day is the best way to find amazing undiscovered talented Irish musicians.

*****Also, this didn’t quite make the list but it is definitely noteworthy and the most Irish thing you can rarely find anywhere else – “Taking the Mick”. I find most cultures tend not to self deprecate themselves but the Irish do nothing better than take the absolute piss out of each other and ourselves.